Roman stood on the balcony, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the horizon. Below him, the city of Easton spread out for more than a mile. The old wall had been dismantled, and the area surrounding his palace – the former police station – had been meticulously redesigned. The A...
2024-01-01 16:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostZeke’s insides twisted into knots as he beheld the landscape before him. The expansive galaxy that had so captivated him was gone, replaced by something decidedly more mundane, yet still impressive in its own way. At first, Zeke thought he was back in the ruins he’d left behind on the surface...
2024-01-01 14:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostIt's hard to believe that we've reached the end of 2023. For me, this has been an incredible year, and it's hard to believe how far I've come with my work. This time last year, I'd just released the first book in the Death: Genesis series, and its performance was still a little up in ...
2023-12-31 20:06:20 +0000 UTC View PostShe is volatile, unreliable, and selfish. Despite that, she represents Earth’s greatest chance for survival. I wish it were otherwise, because I believe Mira is just as likely to destroy the world as save it.
Alistaris Kargat
Magnific...
2023-12-31 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSome people have a talent for battle. All those split-second decisions just come naturally to them. Others have a knack for training. It’s a combination of willingness to push themselves to the limit, over and over again, and the willpower to keep at it long after others would have ...
2023-12-30 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe prisoner looked up with heavy-lidded eyes, his face creased from advanced age, and locked his gaze onto Elijah. He opened his mouth as if to speak, revealing a mouth devoid of teeth, then let out a rasping cackle that quickly turned into a coughing fit. Elijah’s instincts told him to step i...
2023-12-29 16:00:37 +0000 UTC View PostThe sky roiled, angry and impatient to unleash its fury upon the Mukti Plains. A persistent wind whipped the grassland into a frenzy, bringing with it a desperate chill. A lone drop of rain fell upon Zeke’s upturned face, a herald of the storm to come. He glanced to his right, where Rasa Tomasi...
2023-12-29 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Elijah tied the Sash of the Whirlwind around his waist, he looked at his statu...
2023-12-28 17:22:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe smell of death and decay hung heavy in the air as Elijah crouched in the cell where he’d defeated the Warden. The corpses of the troll, dark elf, and ogres were a long way from decomposition, but to Elijah, they still smelled of rot.
Perhaps that was just his imagination.
Or giv...
2023-12-28 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“This is unwise,” spat Raku Tomasi, stomping his hooves in a petulant show of irritation. He gestured to the gathered leaders, growling, “We are the People. We do not bow to two-legged abominations!”
Rasa loomed over the much smaller centaur and glared down at him. That was all it t...
2023-12-28 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes, Mira frightens me. I know she would never hurt me, but she has so much power and so little regard for consequences. She once murdered millions of people without even trying, and that’s not considering what she did to the moon. What if something goes wrong and one... 2023-12-27 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Pain lanced through Elijah’s chest as the blade parted his scales and drove deep into the meat of his torso only to erupt from his back an instant later. The sheer force of the attack drove him backward until he thudded against the wall, sending a spiderweb of cracks arcing out from the point o...
2023-12-26 16:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostThe wind whipped the tree’s branches against Zeke’s legs as he held himself in place. He barely noticed it, instead focusing the whole of his attention on the army in the distance. There weren’t just thousands of them. There were tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds, spread across the v...
2023-12-26 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThe floor of the cell shook with titanic battle as the two ogres clashed with the freed troll. Warbling screams filled the air, suggesting that things were not going well for the jailers. That was as expected; the troll wasn’t just larger, but it had looked far sturdier, as well. Still, even if...
2023-12-25 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostGrand Magister Tordal Irangar slammed his fist into the wall, letting out a bestial scream of anger and frustration. He wheeled around, facing the arrayed advisors as well as the messenger who’d just broken the bad news, and demanded, “Gone? How can it be gone?! It was a city of more than twe...
2023-12-25 14:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostMira has been through a lot. I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s almost died. But none of those instances have affected – or continue to affect – her quite like the time she went up against a horde of irradiated Wildlings. It wasn’t until that moment, when ... 2023-12-24 14:03:53 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm back from my vacation (which was great, by the way), and I'm raring to go. I had some time to think about the stories, and I came up with some really cool ideas that I'm eager to implement (when the time is right). That said, let's dive into the good stuff:
Death: Genesis is...
2023-12-24 02:30:35 +0000 UTC View PostI think Mira always wanted to go back. She has so many regrets that she just can’t leave behind.
Patrick Ward
The wilderness surrounding Mobile was both familiar and not. It felt like I was looking at a landscape that I sh...
2023-12-23 14:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostThe odious smell that permeated the dungeon had grown no less pervasive, but Elijah ignored it as he stalked forward. On either side of the hall were more cages not dissimilar from the one in which he’d left the troll. However, they were mostly empty, and the ones that were occupied contained o...
2023-12-22 16:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostFrom within a burned-out husk of a building, Silik watched as a fireball soared through the sky. It was the signal for which he had been waiting, and he felt his muscles tense in anticipation of the battle to come. Turning to his battle-hardened and elite squad, he said, “Come. We fight.”
... 2023-12-22 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostSnow gently fell, drifting down from the slate gray sky as Carmen steadily trudged along beside the pickup truck. As heavily laden as it was, the vehicle could barely move more than a few miles per hour, and even that was only possible because of the incredible accomplishments of a few Engineers....
2023-12-21 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe sun hung high in the sky as Zeke gazed at the castle across the street. When morning came, he had been forced to descend from on high, so the view wasn’t as pristine as he would have preferred. However, he could still see the steady stream of healers going back and forth through the gates. ...
2023-12-21 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostTraining is one of the most hotly contested subjects in all the universe. Some believe that hyper-focusing on one aspect of a person’s development is the key. Others think that a well-rounded approach is better. Still others resort to methods that more resemble torture than... 2023-12-20 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
A steady flow of gelatinous sludge dripped down into the drainage tunnel. The smell alone was enough to turn Elijah’s stomach, but he was even more concerned with the persistent drops clinging to his scales. Most of them were confined to his upturned face, which made it all the worse.
Fur...
2023-12-19 16:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post“You don’t have to do it,” Sasha said, resting her hand on Pudge’s knee. “I’m sure he has another plan that doesn’t involve you sneaking behind enemy lines.”
Pudge just shook his head. Sasha was smart – far smarter than him, at least – but there were some things she just...
2023-12-19 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe water was warm.
And not the sort of warm one usually experienced in a bath, but rather, the kind that usually came when someone urinated in a pool. That was to say that it was absolutely disgusting, and it was made even more so by the stench invading Elijah’s nostrils. It was so horri...
2023-12-18 16:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostZeke seethed.
At some point, he’d forgotten what true anger felt like. So often, he was subjected to the artificial fury that came from fueling his skills with demonic corruption. That had given him an erroneous perception of the debilitating nature of true rage. Sure, under the influence...
2023-12-18 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe quarantine of any Initialization is supposed to give the natives a chance. With a hundred years, they can progress and grow so that they can stand up to the wave of invaders and colonizers that will come with the Integration. And yet, we all know it’s little more than a... 2023-12-17 14:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
This week's check-in is coming a touch early (I usually like to post them in the middle of Sunday) because I'm going on vacation this week, and I'm set to leave pretty early in the morning. So, I figured I'd throw this thing up there now instead of trying to do it in transit. But don'...
2023-12-17 06:48:39 +0000 UTC View PostMy preference is to build my own equipment. It’s probably not better, but with my skills giving me significant modifiers for self-made gear, it’s close enough for the distinction to not matter. Even if that wasn’t the case, I would do it anyway. There’s just not... 2023-12-16 14:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post